Archive for PitchEngine
Social media enabled PR is about a new kind of pitch, which in its construction and delivery is appropriate for the new social web.
The other day I received an email, the subject heading “Thought you might be interested” and with the salutation “Dear PR Pro”.
“Thought you might be interested” Now that’s compelling, isn’t it? Someone not as inclined as I am to check email could be excused for hitting delete for that one.
Uninviting as the subject heading was, the salutation, “Dear PR Pro”, took the prize for underwhelming salutation of the week. I have added it to the list of title-variable salutation this company gives me in its promo emails, including so far “Dear Corporate Communicator”, “Dear Communicator”, “Dear internal communicator”, “Dear organizational communicator”.
Thankfully, not “Dear Leader” – or not yet, but who knows what their keyword generator will pop out next?!
But what was fascinating, in a bizarre kind of way, was that the email was inviting me to participate in a webinar where I could learn how to do a social media release!
The person listed to deliver the seminar is someone with an admirable track record and I am sure I could learn from him. But the pitch was so last century.
It’s a worry.
One of the many reasons I love representing and promoting PitchEngine is that Founder and CEO Jason Kintzler actually gets social media and how it has changed PR forever.
For Jason it is not about tacking some social platform buttons – Facebook, Twitter, Digg icons – onto a Word document. It is about a new kind of pitch, which in its construction and delivery is appropriate for the new social web.
Jason posted some of his thoughts on this recently, on his new media cowboy Posterous site. In his post Evolving the SMR and Ending Word Doc PR he explains why what we are about to release is different.
I desperately want to avoid nit-picking our way through the PR landscape about what the SMR or SMPR is defined as and what it provides. So, we’re going a different direction. The PitchEngine Social Media Release will be reinvented and reintroduced as the Pitch™. Yes, Tom Forenski. Yes, Peter Shankman. The traditional press release is dead! At least, to us it is. I call it “word doc PR” and it’s as played out as Christmas carols in June. Boss require it still? Just include it as an attachment if you have to. Or send it through a traditional service and embed a link to something much better.
Whether you’re pitching a 3-billion dollar product to the world, or telling your neighbors there’s a garage sale on Tuesday, a pitch is a pitch. There will be good ones, and there will be bad ones – we’re all about enabling you to pitch whatever it is you want to pitch in a concise, cool and more conversational way.
I’m delighted that Jason has agreed to host a webinar this month, focusing on the new Pitch™ platform and how to use it to best effect. The webinar will be at a time to suit our Australian and New Zealand clients. More on that soon!
Summary of features and prices of current PitchEngine options, with some examples
In the past week or so, especially when I was in Sydney for CeBit, I have been mentioning a few people about the new PitchEngine platform soon to be launched.
Today I was asked to provide a list of the features of what is currently the top level package for PitchEngine, so I’m taking the opportunity to do a quick roundup of what is now available, with prices, features and a couple of examples. Anyone who takes out a full twelve month subscription to one of the currently available packages will of course be able to access for that whole year all the features and benefits of the relevant package.
But First, Why PitchEngine?
From a couple of recent conversations, I believe it could be useful to provide a short summary to show how PitchEngine is different from what might at first glance appear similar offerings.
PitchEngine is essentially a social media release software platform “in the cloud”. It is not a distribution or wire service.
What does PitchEngine do for you and your social media powered PR?
- Lets you easily include images, video, links and more at no additional cost
- Enables readers to interact with you and your Pitch™ long after it’s been published
- Helps you broaden your audience beyond the journalist to reach bloggers, investors, consumers and other influencers on the social web
- We don’t brand your content with our giant header and links like wire services do. It’s your press release!
- Create social content that is more engaging (readers view Pitchengine Pitches longer than traditional press releases by PR Newswire, BusinessWire and PR Web (source: alexa.com)
- Display your news, Twitter stream, YouTube channel and Flickr gallery automatically in one place with a PitchEngine newsroom
- Helps you eliminate the press kit and move your entire PR platform to one place
The current options
There are currently three options, as listed on the main PitchEngine site:
- Build and Share Social Media Releases
- Archive Your Brand’s Releases
- Customised Newsroom
The Build and Share Social Media Releases has the following features:
- You can create your own Social Media Releases on our platform and we’ll host and share them FREE for 30 days!
- Include PR content like videos, audio, images, social links and more
- Share your release with your media contacts via link or email or with thousands of consumers via social sites like Facebook, Twitter and others
Investment: FREE
Archive Your Brand’s Releases option:
- Archive every release your brand puts out – no matter how many!
- Grab the RSS Feed (provided) for your brand’s releases and share it with your contacts, clients and social sites or put it on your site’s press page
- Each time a release is published it will remain live and available for media and consumer to find, and for you to edit
- We’ll even share your release on our PitchFeed which is typically indexed by Google, Bing, Yahoo! and other search engines.
Investment: US$35 per month or US$400 per year
The Customised Newsroom option offers:
- Host all of your releases in a custom newsroom
- Choose from the headline font color that matches your brand identity
- Give visitors a way to find and follow you on twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and more
- Each time you add a release using PitchEngine, it will be automatically posted to your newsroom. No uploading necessary
- Link to the newsroom from your client’s website, or yours for easy access to your press content, contact links and more
Investment: US$50 per month or US$550 per year
Example of a social media release
Here is an example of a social media release which utilises the features of the PitchEngine platform
Golden State Warriors “new look” release (see how they use still images, video, Twitter ect)
Example of a customised newsroom
First to clarify what we mean by a customised newsroom (and we don’t mean just a page on your website with links to press release files)
The PitchEngine Customised Social Media Newsroom is a place to host all of your social media releases and share them from a central place. It enables brands to integrate their social feeds from Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and PitchEngine into one place making it easy for consumers, journalists and bloggers to find them through the social web.
See for example this group’s use of the newsroom, linking from their main site (click the News tab to see the customised newsroom)
See also the Carl’s Jr. customised newsroom.
Example of using agency feed to promote clients
The Backbone Media company has re-organised its home page to give prominence to its agency PitchEngine RSS feed. If you look at the right column – “Recent Releases” – you will see that it is a feed which incorporates releases from various companies, which are in fact Backbone Media’s clients.
For PitchEngine clients in Australia and New Zealand
Australian and New Zealand PitchEngine subscribers can contact me, Des Walsh, directly (I’m on the Gold Coast so Australian eastern time is best) and if I am not immediately available I will get back to you as soon as possible, normally on the same day. When PitchEngine becomes as successful as I know it’s going to be I might not be able to take all the calls personally, but I am personally committed to seeing that all PitchEngine subscribers in our part of the globe get quality service in a timely fashion.
If you have any questions about PitchEngine products and services, please get in touch – see the Contact page for details.
On the Businessmakers Radio Show, Esther Steinfeld interviews PitchEngine Founder and CEO, Jason Kintzler. The interview was back in October, but it’s quite current even now and I find it really valuable in that Jason gets to really explain what PitchEngine is all about and how businesses can benefit.
The interviewer is an unabashed fan of the social media release and asks Jason some very pertinent questions.
Some snippets
“The brands that are discovering PitchEngine are all sizes and shapes …”
“If you take a traditional press release and try to cram it into a social media channel, it doesn’t work …”
“…why not wrap some content around it…”
“We use the fax machine because it’s there. Pretty lame.”
“Press releases suck!”
It was a terrifically encouraging week for those of us in the PitchEngine network, with the announcement that, just under one year out from beta, the social media release platform is now hosting more than 10,000 brands.
One aspect of the news, beyond the immediate benefit for the PitchEngine brand, is that it signals a much broader acceptance and uptake, than say a year ago, of the whole concept of a social media release.
I really like this tutorial video on how to create a social media release on PitchEngine, by Tom Allinder.
He tells it like it is in plain English, including where he sees people consistently leaving out in their releases, thus not making the most use of the platform.
I’ve watched it twice now and learned something each time. I’ll be watching it again to see if there’s something else I can learn. This guy knows his stuff and I think it’s great that he has shared his experience and tips for success!
You can also see the video on YouTube.
In my search for tutorials and other items that can help people understand PitchEngine better and use it more effectively, I came across this dynamic and to-the-point video of noted blogger, podcaster and social media expert Aliza Sherman Risdahl. I love the way she explains, in this short presentation, the significance of the social media release and PitchEngine in the evolution of communications media, as well as how PitchEngine works.
You can watch the video in a larger window on YouTube.
Aliza is one of the opening speakers at BlogWorld & New Media Expo in Las Vegas this coming October.
Here is a short, to the point overview of the PitchEngine social media release tool. It’s by PitchEngine Founder and CEO Jason Kintzler.
You can also watch the video in a bigger window on YouTube.
Question: What do Rugby football, fly fishing, Wyoming and social media release PitchEngine have in common?
Answer: Jason Kinztler, PitchEngine Founder and CEO, who lives in Wyoming, USA, is a fly fisherman and is not just a Rugby fan but actually plays the game.
In the short interview posted here as a podcast, I talk with Jason about his story, how PitchEngine came to be and where it fits into the PR scheme of things, with special reference to Australia and New Zealand.
Some of the items we covered:
- Who is Jason Kintzler?
- The basic concept of PitchEngine and what needs it is designed to meet
- How the community helped in the evolution of PitchEngine
- How you can live in Wyoming and show the folks in Silicon Valley and New York a few good moves
- Why PitchEngine is not just for PR pros (although it’s great for them too)
- A couple of case studies
There are a few bits where the technology let us down, but for me the interview was both informative and good fun, with some – for me anyway – fascinating insights into the PitchEngine story.
Just over a month has now elapsed since the announcement of arrangements for social media release service PitchEngine in Australia and New Zealand.
I’m excited at the possibilities offered by PitchEngine, for PR professionals and the PR industry, for business generally in this part of the world, and indeed for non-profit organisations and government.
In fact, anyone who wants to use the social Web more effectively to get their message out and interact with their communities.
This site has been set up as PitchEngine Australia, rather than as PitchEngine Australia and New Zealand. Not out of any disrespect to our cousins across the ditch: on the contrary, once we have some NZ subscribers to PitchEngine I want to set up a site focused on NZ needs and issues. If that seems like a dumb idea and a combined site is preferred, please let me know via the comments here or the Contact page.
There have been some very gratifying and humbling comments made to me and publicly, such as on Twitter, about PitchEngine’s decision to appoint me as their manager for this part of the world. I am committed to keeping faith with the confidence that has been shown.
Apart from our connection with PitchEngine HQ in the USA, we have a close working relationship with PitchEngine Asia, based in Guangzhou, China and through that connection we will be able to provide some special value-adding services such as translation in various Asian region languages, inclusion on Reuters China’s feed, and so on.
PitchEngine Founder and CEO Jason Kintzler has accepted an invitation to be interviewed by me tomorrow and I will post that interview here.
In the short message below, Des Walsh welcomes you to this site dedicated to supporting PitchEngine subscribers in Australia and New Zealand.
PitchEngine is proud to be a Donor supporter of TEDx Canberra - Saturday, 23 October 2010
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